So many islands dotted the route that they sometimes became hard to distinguish, blending into each other with only thin channels isolating them from the rest of the land. The air tasted cool and fresh with the sea breeze leaving goose pimples on my arms.

It is travelling in places like this that make you realise why the Vikings probably did take to the water; it is only when you leave the protection of the fjords and head out to the open-sea that the more fearsome characteristics of the Norwegian cost come to light.

Travelling in places like this make you realise why the Vikings took to the water

I felt like I could have remained on this boat all day, travelling back and forth between the islands under the blue sky. The ferry rejoined the mainland and I disembarked almost reluctantly and boarded a bus for similarly spectacular journey as the vehicle snaked its way along the coastline, passing clean red, white, yellow and green timber houses, which were sandwiched between the mountains and the fjord.

After half an hour, the bus climbed its way up into the mountains, ending up at the even smaller village of Preikestolhytte, which consisted of one hostel and one information centre on the bank of a clear blue lake surrounded by rocky peaks. This village is used predominantly by hikers as a base for walks in the mountains around Lysefjorden, a long and narrow fjord whose walls are so steep that anyone living alongside it can only leave their homes by boat. End to end, the fjord stretches 42km with its rocky walls stretching up to 1,000 metres above, and the freezing water plunging to a depth of up to 400 metres below.

With only a short amount of time, my aim was to hike the 6km up to Preikestolen (translated in English as ‘Pulpit Rock’) and have a bit of an explore around there. Preikestolen is a rocky cliff overhanging Lysefjorden, with a sheer drop of 700m were one to be unfortunate enough to slip off its ledge. With this in mind, I was amazed to see other hikers accompanied by dogs, walking sticks and hyperactive children. I had a rather disturbing mental image of a slightly over-excited pet chasing a bird a little too far only to never be seen again.

It rains up to 300 days a year in this part of south-west Norway

Hiking up to Preikestolen does not take particularly long, but pausing along the way to appreciate the magnitude of the surroundings is a necessity. It rains up to 300 days a year in this part of south-west Norway but I was lucky to be hiking under a largely cloud-free sky. The moisture, however, means that even this inhospitable rocky terrain is covered in greenery, sprouting from every possible crevice. Steep waterfalls also line the 330m climb from Preikestolhytte and even now, in late May, snow capped peaks can be seen in the distance.

Although the trail itself can get crowded during the day (around 90,000 people hike up to Preikestolen each year), there are a number of quieter detours that can be taken along the way. One of my favourites involved carefully climbing a steep rock face just before reaching the cliff, which is most people’s final destination, for a daunting aerial view of the brightly coloured hikers below, milling happily around the 25 by 25 metre surface.

The owners of the one youth hostel in Preikestolhytte go to so much of an effort to blend the three timber framed buildings in with the scenery that they have grass and flowers planted on their roofs. I arrived on the first day of the season that the hostel was open, meaning it was relatively quiet – although I did share the dormitory with Alizé, a French girl who was in Norway on an ERASMUS exchange. Alizé was in her 20s with long, dark brown hair and stylish clothing. She seemed to enjoy complaining about the Norwegians: “When someone bumps into you on the street or steps on your foot, they don’t even say sorry,” she said.

I asked her if she thought she would ever come back to Norway. “I don’t think so,” she replied. “Things happen too slowly here, not like in Paris.” For me, the calm and relaxed pace of life is exactly something that would attract me back to Norway, and I hastened to disagree with her on the rudeness aspect.

“I know York,” he said, stroking his beard. “The Vikings went to York”

Rain clouds drifted over the mountains at dusk; acres of mountain forest would hide under the cloud cover and then reappear sometime later. It was during this mystical scene that I realised why trolls, the legendary fearsome and devious inhabitants of Scandinavian forest, are present in so many Norwegian folk tales.

This was all while tucking into a plate of Rømmegrøt, a ‘traditional’ Norwegian porridge made of sour cream, flour and milk. I don’t know what exactly inspired me to order it, but I can safely say it was the one truly regretful experience during my time in Norway. The texture was thick, like a very thick warm yogurt, and yellow grease seeped up the side of the bowl.

In my happiness at being where I was, however, I neglected to think ahead as to how I was actually going to get back to civilisation. When I finally got around to it, I realised the next bus that would take me to the ferry back to Stavanger didn’t actually leave for another four days. “It’s ok,” the strikingly blonde hostel receptionist told me, in English better than my own. “My father is heading to town later today and he’ll give you a lift.” This was a relief, especially because “town” was of a sufficient distance away to require about a day of walking otherwise, and furthermore the rain clouds hadn’t gone away from the previous night.

The said father was called Anders and had bright silver hair and a bushy grey beard. I would place him in about his sixties. Although his English was not as good as his daughter’s, we did manage some conversation during the journey. He epitomised for me the happy, helpful Norwegian that I had been previously told so much about.

“Where are you from?” He asked me a short way into the drive. “York, in the UK,” I told him.

“Yes, I know York,” he said slowly, stroking his beard. “The Vikings went to York.”

Monmartre, Paris. Photo: Adam Sloan

Thirty years after the Orient Express made its final journey from London to Istanbul, Adam Sloan hits Paris, Vienna and Sofia to follows in its footsteps.

It had a reputation as the epitome of luxury travel. Man and wife would wear tuxedos to dine on board while the train snaked its way through Europe. London to Istanbul was the classic route of the Orient Express and the one I would be re-tracing, 30 years after the last ‘Direct’ Orient-Express went out of commission.

My journey started in the less than glamorous airport-style departure lounge of Waterloo station, where I waited for the Eurostar to speed me in two and a half hours from London to Paris. It would be very different from the heyday of the Orient Express when the trains used to queue up at the docks and impatient passengers would have to wait for their luxury car to be shunted onto a ferry and across the channel. For the modern traveller though, Eurostar definitely provides the most efficient, relaxed and stylish way to travel between two of the world’s greatest cities. It is a smooth and comfortable journey that drops passengers right in the heart of Paris’s bustling Monmartre district.

Leo shared my sleeping compartment. He had left university at 21 to join the circus

There is very little about Paris that I do not love. The endless number of cafes that line the boulevards, the chequered history and the pride of its inhabitants. I even feel a small comfort in partaking in the regular battle of wills with the aggressive souvenir sellers that line the route up to the Basilique du Sacré-Coer.

This time I only had about 24 hours in Paris, so I made sure that I crammed in as many of my favourite things to do there as possible. This generally involved strolling around Monmartre in the day and the Latin Quarter at night (with frequent rest stops for coffee or red wine). Monmartre epitomises everything I love about Paris. It is bohemian and multicultural, while at the same time just being insatiably French. After a leisurely stroll along the Seine, I made my way to the Gare de l’Est to meet the train that would take me overnight from Paris to Vienna, and then on to Budapest.

The Paris to Vienna leg is actually the only part of the journey that is still officially dubbed ‘The Orient Express’, and this is only evident to one who looks very closely at the paper sign on the inside window of the carriage doors.

Men playing chess, Budapest Keleti train station. Photo: Adam Sloan

There was just one other person sharing my sleeping compartment: Leo Silberstein from Australia. Leo was a playwright, director, actor and clown who had left university at 21 and ran off to join the circus. Now in his 40s, as soon as he walked into our compartment he struck me as an ‘artsy’ type, wearing a light-coloured shirt with a red jumper draped over his shoulders and wild auburn hair. Originally from the USA, he left after studying Political Science in Pennsylvania because he felt his country was turning into a fascist state. “I went back a few years ago, to San Diego,” he told me, “which is the testing ground for the future police-state. You see all these people in uniforms and you just know it is happening.” With an interesting life-story, Leo proved fantastic company for the 15-hour journey.

We arrived in Vienna in just enough time for me to race around to buy a ticket and catch my connecting train onto Budapest. This was another modern Eurocity-Express making its way between the two capital cities in little under three hours.

First impressions of Budapest were almost overwhelmingly positive. The central Keleti train station is ornate and grand and gives off the impression that many great journeys would have had their origins there. Budapest is actually three cities straddling the Danube River. Residential suburban Obuda to the northwest, medieval hilly Buda to the west and commercial Pest to the east. Nine bridges cross the Danube linking Buda with Pest.

My hostel was up a dark staircase just off Radacay Utca, one of the city’s major pedestrianised streets. ‘Maxim Hostel’ was small and homely, mostly because it was essentially just somebody’s apartment with a few extra beds thrown in one of the rooms. It takes quite a while chatting to people before you can work out whether they work there, are a guest, or own the place. But it was quiet and relaxed, exactly what I was after.

“I travel with no passport,” Nicolajic said. “If Polizia catch me, I go to jail.”

Unfortunately though, the quietness seemed to extend all across Budapest for the three days I was there. Despite rampant hoards of tour groups stomping up and around the medieval Castle Hill, I found the rest of the city to be almost eerily quiet. The Lonely Planet describes the street I was staying on as “crammed with cafes, bars and eateries.” This was partially true, although it fails to mention that all of them happen to be near empty.

The story wasn’t much different during the day either. Dust blew heavily around Pest on a relatively bright day, but shops were empty, I had reams of personal space walking about the main avenues and even the traffic was relatively light. Feeling slightly disconcerted by this, I bought myself a ticket on the nightly through sleeping car to the Bulgarian capital of Sofia.

Alexandr Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia, Bulgaria. Photo: Adam Sloan.

It was a little difficult at this point to determine which route to take, as political changes in Europe during the early 20th century meant that the Orient Express was frequently diverted along a number of different routes. The one I was taking was the 1885 route that went from Budapest to Belgrade, through Sofia and on to Istanbul.

The train didn’t leave until close to midnight, so after spending my last Florins on another bowl of goulash and a beer I decided that I didn’t particularly feel like wandering round the city on my own late at night and so I resolved to spend some quality time with my book, watching the world go by in Keleti station.

I was to have company, however, as relatively soon after sitting down I was joined by Nicolajic. The most disturbing thing about my three hours spent with Nicolajic was his tendency to leap behind my backpack whenever a Hungarian policeman came into sight. “I travel with no passport, no visa,” he told me. “If Polizia catch me, I get thrown in jail.”

Nicolajic was 28 and from Serbia; he was tall and unkempt, with short dark hair, and wore a leather jacket and faded blue jeans. He told me he was on his way home to carry out some “business” after being deported from Italy, having initially swum across the Italy-Slovenia border, undetected, with his girlfriend. “Serbia wont give me a passport because I have been in prison,” he said solemnly. “So I will go home, carry out my business and then try and make my way back into Italy.”

Nicolajic joined the Serbian army for four years when he was 18, serving in Kosovo around the time of the NATO assault in 1998. “Kosovo is a beautiful place,” he told me, “But they don’t like Serbs there.” He didn’t speak a great deal of English, which allowed our relatively short conversation to stretch over a relatively long period of time. “Tito was good, but then he went bad. Milosovic too was good, but then he also went bad.”

After leaving the army at 22, Nicolajic married his first wife and ended up having a child, but then he spent the next few years in and out of prison and lost touch with them both. “I try to go back to see my daughter, but my ex-wife says I am not allowed to see her… so I pack my bags and leave the country. Serbia is shit.”

The train eventually turned up and we parted ways. I wondered how he was going to fair getting across the Hungary-Serbia border without a passport.

His warning rang in my head: “Don’t ever be anywhere on your own – they will probably rob you.”

My carriage was the only one on the train that was going all the way through to Bulgaria and was actually pretty much empty. I was shown by the attendant to a two-person sleeping compartment of which I was the only occupant for the next 19 hours to Sofia. The warning that the owner of Maxim Hostel gave me as I left rang in my head as I sat down: “These trains in central Europe are dangerous, especially those passing through Romania or Serbia. Don’t ever be anywhere on your own – they will probably rob you.”

We crossed the border with Serbia at about one in the morning. The Hungarian border guard that boarded my carriage was a short, irate man with a square face, which he insisted on putting barely an inch from mine as he was examining my passport. Never breaking eye contact with me, even when checking my passport with a UV lamp, he then dashed out of the compartment and off the train. Just as I was starting to think what I was going to say to the British consulate, he returned and took up his previous position in front of my face. I went to take my passport out of his hand and he pulled it away. Pausing for about a further ten seconds he then threw it on the floor and stormed off.

The journey across the Serbian countryside was pretty spectacular. We spent most of the day passing around green hills and through small villages. I felt that it was a shame that I was not going to be stopping to explore what looks like a beautiful country which, since the chaos of the 90s, has been largely left out by tourists, but my time was running out and I wanted to spend some time in Sofia before making my way on to Istanbul.

“Give me your money,” he said as he grabbed the loose change out of my hand

The train entered Sofia through grim suburbs of derelict factories and communist-era apartment blocks. A mothballed power station sat menacingly next to the train station. I arrived in the darkness at around seven in the evening and promptly got lost trying to find my hostel. I was pleased, though, to see the city bustling with people walking in every direction. The roads were congested and I had to keep conscious control over my backpack to avoid it hitting random passers by.

My hostel was similar to that which I had stayed in Budapest. Down a seedy alleyway (this one was actually opposite a sex shop), up a dark set of stairs and into a random apartment with a few extra bunk beds thrown in.

Blue Mosque at Sunset, Istanbul. Photo: Adam Sloan

Sofia certainly did not disappoint; I found it to be an invigorating place. Furthermore, I am an icon geek. It is probably a good thing for me to travel alone when I am in Eastern Europe, as I am sure that any prospective companion would quickly get fed up with the amount of Orthodox churches I would drag them in and out of so I could admire all the icons. Well, the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in central Sofia has to be the most spectacular building I have ever set foot in. It is a relatively modern church, built in the early 20th century, adorned with icons painted by the finest artists from all over Eastern Europe. Inside its grandeur becomes almost overwhelming, the light is low and there is an incredible amount of open space. I spent rather a large amount of time on my first day in Sofia treading slowly around the cathedral, admiring the artwork and the peaceful atmosphere of the inside.

Another thing I liked about Sofia is that they haven’t removed a lot of the statues from the communist era. You are still able to see huge, glorious workers and soldiers with raised fists and revolutionary expressions. I also enjoyed watching the old men in flat caps sit and play chess at lighting speeds in the city parks.

After a few days in Sofia it was time to take the final leg of my journey to Istanbul. I had been pre-warned that there was nowhere on the train to buy food for the 15 hour journey so I made sure I saved just enough Bulgarian Lev in change to buy myself a sandwich and a drink when I got to the station. While queuing at the kiosk, a short man with olive skin and ominous looking tattoos on his face came up and stood next to me. “American?” No. “German?” No. “Swiss?” No. “Give me your money,” he said as he grabbed the loose change out of my hand and then, to add insult to injury, stood in front of me in the queue at the kiosk. I hung around, bemused, just long enough to see him actually buy the exact sandwich I had my eye on before I thought it a good idea to vacate the area and make my way to the platform.

You can still see the communist statues of workers with raised fists and revolutionary expressions

Hungry and annoyed I eventually did manage to fine my train and leave Sofia. Despite my less than glamorous exit, I still absolutely loved the city.

Istanbul is home to 12 million people and is the only city in the world to straddle two continents, Europe and Asia. The size of the city is immediately apparent as you approach on the train. As we started entering the outskirts, I began to pack my bag and organise my things, but it ended up being over an hour until we actually reached the station in Sultanahmet, the old city and heart of European Istanbul. The train glided along the Bosphorus, the narrow strip of water dividing the city in two, on its approach into Sirkeci station and I was then met by a maelstrom of taxi drivers and accommodation touts.

I almost couldn’t believe I was here. Having first boarded the Eurostar at Waterloo and taken the continuous stretch of track along the route of the Orient Express, I wondered what it would have been like for the original passengers of the Orient Express arriving in Istanbul, many of whom would have been carrying on towards Persia and Mesopotamia. I sat in front of the glorious Blue Mosque, the real symbolic icon of Istanbul known around the world, just in time to hear the call to prayer ring across the city. The mesmerising sounds coming out of the Blue Mosque were then followed by many more from all the other surrounding mosques, as a wall of beautiful noise rings across this great metropolis.

I bought a kebab and a cup of sweet apple tea and just sat outside for hours gazing between the Blue Mosque and the equally fascinating Hagia-Sofia (originally an Orthodox church, then a mosque and now a museum), which sits on the hill opposite. Here was the bridge between Europe and Asia just waiting to be crossed. I realised, however, that my time was up and as much as my desire was telling me to cross that bridge and press on, I knew that I would have to wait for another time.

The immigration officer looked at me, puzzled, before somewhat reluctantly stamping my visa and allowing me into Russia. It was only later that I realised that where it asked for my visa number on the Russian immigration card, I had written my passport number and my date of departure where I should have my date of arrival. I crossed the border by bus, excited that after so many years of dreaming, I had finally made it here.

I admit that I was quite nervous stepping off the coach in St. Petersburg. I have never travelled anywhere that gives quite as much of a cultural blast as soon as you step onto its soil. I was alone, armed solely with my Lonely Planet guide and Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment to direct me.

Picking up my senselessly overloaded backpack, I made my way to the metro, and my nerves quickly gave way to a sense of amazement as I stepped into one of the incredibly grand stations.

To fall asleep leaving St. Petersburg and wake up on the way to Moscow is like travelling between different worlds.

Both the St. Petersburg and Moscow metro systems were built as part of Stalin’s grand modernisation plans for the Soviet Union. As well as being arguably one of the most efficient metros in the world, the St. Petersburg system is also filled with socialist-realist art. The walls are adorned with huge murals, and statues linger between platforms. Elegant chandeliers hang from ceilings so high that they look like they could stretch back up to the surface.

Despite its beauty, St. Petersburg was originally built on a swamp by Peter the Great in the 18th century. He had in mind an aristocratic capital resembling a European city, a step away from the heavily Russified medieval capital of Moscow. The architecture is grand and elaborate, and the city is criss-crossed with canals, earning it the nickname “the Venice of the North”.

The hugely eminent Winter Palace is the epicenter of the city, and houses the main collection of the State Hermitage Museum. First founded by Catherine the Great, it was established with the aim of showing off her art to visiting European aristocrats. Students get in free with an ISIC card.

Close to the Palace is the onion- domed and dramatically named “Church Built on Spilled Blood”, erected by Alexander III on the site of his father’s assassination. The church’s outside is ornately decorated with painted depictions of the gospels, as well as bright, multi-coloured minuets.

Like many of Russia’s Orthodox churches that were given more “practical” uses during Soviet times, the “Church on Spilled Blood” spent the Stalin period being a potato and vegetable warehouse.

My next destination was the ancient capital of Moscow. I travelled there in style on train number 001, the historic “Red Arrow”, and the same train that famously carried the first Soviet government from St. Petersburg to Moscow.

To fall asleep leaving St. Petersburg and wake up on the way to Moscow is like travelling between different worlds; the two cities are almost complete polar opposites. Whereas St. Petersburg is calm and regal, Moscow is fast paced and brutish. Tourists are replaced with businessmen (and their glamorous wives), and the enormous wealth of the city, which is home to more dollar billionaires than any other in the world, hits you slap-bang in the face. This impression of wealth is quickly followed by one of poverty, as grandmothers accost you for change on arrival.

I could not come to Moscow without visiting Lenin’s mausoleum where he lies proudly on display to the gawking public. The queue to see the resting place of Russia’s first communist leader is permanently swollen, and made up of an interesting mix of elderly, moustachioed Russians, and tourists in “CCCP” T-shirts. The walk around the coffin is lined with armed guards, and when someone later asked me, “Do you know why there are so many armed guards in Lenin’s mausoleum?” and I shook my head, they replied, “It’s in case he moves…then they can shoot the bastard.”

I walked from the mausoleum out into Red Square, where I was greeted by the incredibly colourful domes and red-bricked architecture of St. Basil’s cathedral. The building of St. Basil’s was commissioned in the 16th century by Tsar Ivan “The Terrible”. As a child, Ivan’s hobby was to go to the top of the tallest tower of the Kremlin and drop live cats down onto the ground below. After the completion of St. Basil’s, he blinded the architect, to ensure that nothing of comparable beauty could ever again be built.

Moscow grew on me. Although I’m not sure if I could put up with the fast paced, cut-throat attitude for long, I hardly even scratched the surface. To get under the skin of a city as huge as Moscow would take weeks, possibly months.

My next train was the brand new “Moscow-Kiev Express” which took just nine hours to travel the 765km between the two countries’ capital cities. I knew almost immediately that I was going to like Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, or Kyiv in Ukrainian. It was a big city without being overbearing, and dotted with hills and beautiful golden domed monasteries. I made my way almost immediately to the central ‘Independence Square’, which is permanently bustling with activity.

The most beautiful place in Kiev must be the hilltop monasteries of Pechersk-Lavra. This is a complex with huge golden and green domed monastaries glittering in the sun. A cradle of orthodoxy rising above the right bank of the Dniepr river, I found it incredible that such a beautiful place could exist in the middle of such a bustling city. Pilgrims wandered throughout, and I spent many happy hours strolling through the cobbled streets and well kept gardens, admiring the magnificent churches and enjoying the serenity.

Packing my bag again I took a train West across the country to Lviv. The capital of Ukrainian nationalism, it was one of the country’s few cities that wasn’t bombed during World War Two, meaning it still has a fantastically preserved medieval old town.

One of the reasons I ended up liking Lviv so much was because, despite being so well preserved, the Old Town wasn’t “museum like”, and still operated as a working city, instead of being simply a slave to tourism, into which many of Europe’s finest Old Towns seem to have been transformed. Old men in flat caps played chess in the central square, and workers attended city centre churches at the end of the day.

There was a slight air of decrepidness: holes in the streets, buildings that looked like they were ready to collapse in on themselves. A couple of kids were playing football and when the ball hit the wall and bouced back off, it was followed by a large chunk of plaster and a cloud of dust.

One of the best indicators as a traveller of how you feel about a place is whether you can see yourself returning. The Ukraine is such a huge country, with so much to see: cities, mountains, quaint villages, and more. I would definately go back, but for now, I had to move on: I had another train to catch.

Life hasn’t slowed down for David Davis, MP for Haltemprice and Howden, as might be expected after losing the battle for leadership of the Conservative party almost a year ago. Originally from York, David Davis grew up mostly in South London, later earning qualifications from Warwick University, the London Business School and Harvard University.

Prior to becoming an MP, David Davis was also a member of the Territorial Army’s SAS unit and a senior executive for Tate and Lyle, with whom he spent 17 years. Under the government of John Major, he served as a minister in the Foreign Office before becoming Party Chairman and later shadowing Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, whom he jokingly describes as “less of a shadow, more of an eclipse really!” David Cameron has also recently appointed him as the party’s Shadow Home Secretary.

For the first time in years, his party is enjoying a lead over Labour in the polls, but accusations of “style over substance” have been abundant. Many aren’t quite sure where they stand anymore and they have yet to commit to any firm policies.

People think of me as being right wing, but I am a libertarian.

“People think of me as being right wing, but I am actually a libertarian, and we as a party are becoming more and more libertarian.” Since losing spectacularly in the 1997 General Election, many would agree that the Conservatives have been suffering from something of an identity crisis, and last May they lost their third consecutive general election.

“The first two of those elections we were never going to win, the public wanted to give New Labour more time to prove itself. What did happen though, was that William Hague started off with a very modernising agenda and veered to the right later on, and this was unwise. It is always unwise though to shift your principles.”

Davis was quick to refute accusations that his party was “obsessed” with immigration in the run up to the General Election in 2005: “I was being interviewed for Sky News and they asked me six questions about immigration,” he said, “question seven was ‘why are you obsessed with immigration?’”

Hints of a change in direction in Conservative policy have been made since the start of the new leadership. The party has recently dropped its pledge to abandon university tuition fees.

“We are not going to reverse the Labour party policy. The funding of universities and having high quality universities is the most important thing.”

Davis also made his views clear on the numbers of students now entering higher education. “I don’t believe in the 50% target [of school leavers into higher education]. I don’t think it is good for students and I don’t think it is good for the economy.”

On whether he was concerned about the possibility of students being deterred from coming to university by the prospect of higher fees, Davis said his concern was “less about deterring people, and more about the social deterring of graduates starting out their working life with huge debt hanging over them.

“But every alternative is more expensive, and this has happened because it is the only way that is affordable to the taxpayer.”

Overall, Davis put across a very positive outlook for the future of the Conservatives and more specifically his plans for being a future Home Secretary. “It is often said, ‘Oh well, this is an impossible job’ and there has even been talk in the last few months of breaking up the Home Office. This is nonsense. Of course, it has always been a difficult job, but not impossible. It has been made much more difficult in the last few years by the Labour government’s behaviour.”

Not known for his public speaking, and having admitted that it was his “crap speech” that led him to lose the Conservative leadership contest, Davis last week entertained a packed lecture theatre of 160 students on a fleeting visit here to York. Of course, there were no policy proposals, but there was plenty of rhetoric.

Many commented afterwards that he offered much in the way of problems and little in the way of solutions. Others were left with the distinct impression that the political tide was indeed turning and that the Tories’ ten-year stint in opposition will soon to be coming to an end.

The conflict in some ways seems only to have enabled Hezbollah to strengthen their hold on much of the population of Southern Lebanon, while Israel has come under criticism from both internal and external bodies about its conduct during the war.
In Lebanon itself there is much reconstruction to be done.

Unexploded cluster bombs have been discovered in close to 750 separate locations in the South, which will prevent more than 200,000 displaced people returning to their homes.

Cluster bombs are still legal to use when directed against military targets. Israel has claimed that Hezbollah militants have been hiding out in civilian areas, which has made it ever more difficult to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate targeting. Their use, however, has been criticised jointly by Amnesty International, the United Nations and Human Rights Watch.

The United Nations predicts that it may take up to two years to fully sweep the area for unexploded ordinances. Bombs can be found on rooftops, mixed in with rubble and litter, across fields, roads and driveways. Over a hundred people have so far been wounded by these unexploded devices.

Politically the situation also remains volatile. The leadership of Hezbollah have rejected calls by the UN to disarm, and there is still a very significant de facto Hezbollah presence in the south. Lebanese troops have now been able to move into the region though, supported by a UN peacekeeping force numbering around 6,000.

There are many who also worry that the destabilisation of the Lebanese government during war could result in the return of the only recently departed Syrian forces back into the country. Syria has been accused by the United States of financing and backing Hezbollah.

For years prior to the conflict, Hezbollah acted almost as a “state within a state” in Southern Lebanon, setting up schools and providing services for the local population. Many argue that it has been the failure of the Lebanese government in allowing this kind of situation to continue that allowed Hezbollah to become so powerful.

Israel and the United States both view Hezbollah as a terrorist group. The position of the UK is a little cloudier, recognising the militant wing as a terrorist organisation, but not its political side.

By Adam Sloan and Claire Yeo
POLITICS EDITORS

The city of York, which too many of us only glimpse whilst in the taxi from campus to Ziggys, is celebrating being named the best city in England for tourism. Venture into the market area on a Sunday and you will be surprised at how packed full of tourists the centre is, especially if you tend to spend your weekends on the University’s usually deserted campus. However, despite the dislike that most of us generally have for visitors to ‘our’ city, it’s true that even students can occasionally enjoy becoming tourists, and the sights that the city offers are more than enough to persuade even the laziest student to pick up a tourist book and map, and set out on a day of sightseeing.

If you made your first arrival into the city from the train station, you will no doubt have been confronted with the awe-inspiring Minster, York’s most famous attraction and the star of its own TV documentary. The area and sights surrounding the Minster, however, are less well known and newcomers are often surprised by just how many historical places of interest York boasts. The sheer number of tourists the city attracts on a day-to-day basis is even more surprising. So here’s a brief guide to York’s historical highlights for you newcomers to help you become more York savvy – and maybe even inspire your own tour of the city.

Dick Turpin, the highwayman, was imprisoned in York after being accused of horse stealing, and hanged at what is ironically now the York Racecourse

A good place for any student to start is with a pint of ale in one of York’s finest medieval watering holes. As the well-worn adage goes, the city has a pub for every day of the year, so you have plenty to choose from! A personal choice, though, would be the Black Swan Pub – a finely restored, 15th century building, boasting a roaring fire and dark wood interior, which provides the perfect setting for a quiet drink or two.

If, one pint down, you’re begining to develop a taste for the medieval, why not then venture inside the Minster, take a tour of some of York’s many beautiful churches and guildhalls, or wander the winding streets of the Shambles? To give you that extra nudge off your seat, it is worth noting that entry to the Minster is free with an N.U.S. card. It is, also, the largest gothic cathedral in Northern Europe and second only to Canterbury Cathedral in terms of importance for the Church of England. The building boasts more medieval stained glass than any other English church and is an impressive setting for services and concerts.

The Shambles is the most visited street in Europe. It was once home to York’s butchers’ shops, (the name derives from the Saxon for ‘flesh-shelves’) and you can still see the gutter-like middle where the offal and gore used to run freely. Nice. It’s more picturesque nowadays, though, albeit horrendously crowded at weekends.

As you embark on your first night of doing the Micklegate run, home to York’s most lively bars and popular nightclubs, you will enter through the traditional royal entrance of Micklegate Bar, one of the city’s gates. During medieval and early modern times, the heads of traitors were displayed on top of the bar as a warning to those entering the city. Many still report sightings of the ghost of Thomas Percy, one of the principal conspirators in the gunpowder plot, wandering around Holy Trinity church looking for his head. (Curiously, the chances of happening upon Mr Percy are greatly increased in line with Micklegate ‘trebles for singles’ consumption.)

Guy Fawkes himself was actually born and schooled right here in York. Keep an eye out for the commemorative plaque in the shadow of the Minster by Michael-le-Belfrey church. Another infamous social deviant, Dick Turpin the highwayman, was imprisoned in York after being accused of horse stealing and hanged at what is now, rather ironically, York Racecourse.

York’s primary medieval event of the year takes place in mid-February when the city is transformed for the Jorvik Viking Festival. For this week, the city is occupied (invaded if you like) by overly blonde, bearded men in chain mail, the river cruises are replaced with long boats and fierce medieval battles are re-enacted outside Clifford’s tower. Last year there was even a re-enactment of a Viking wedding in York Minster. The activities are certainly a spectacle and it’s well worth heading down to the banks of the Ouse early to get a prime spot.

For those of you who love your steam engines: what York lacks in amazing clubs or cheap campus bars, it makes up for with the National Railway Museum (small consolation for the rest of us). Amongst the exhibits here are a replica of Robert Stevenson’s rocket, a Japanese bullet train, the Flying Scotsman and even a working mini railway for those who still have some growing up to do. If you’re not so passionate about historic locomotives, maybe take a stroll along the city walls (in the right weather) or visit the nearby York Eye instead. It may not exactly rival the London Eye in skyline or design, but it certainly provides an interesting perspective on your surroundings.

As you will soon find, with or without one of the city’s organised tours, York’s narrow streets and impressive squares are brimming with history. This guide is only a taste of the many attractions you cannot help but stumble across – drunk or sober. So make the most of your time here and see what else you can discover about your second home.

More than 16,000 species worldwide are facing the threat of extinction, primarily as a result of human activity.

For 30 years, Stanley Johnson has been campaining for the protection of endangered species. As an MEP between 1979 and 84, he chaired the European Parliament’s committee on the environment and has since written more than ten books on environmental issues. Recently he has travelled on fact-finding missions out to places such as India, Malaysia and Brazil, investigating human impact on endangered species. He is also the father of Boris Johnson, MP for Henley and Conservative Higher Education Spokesman.

Johnson recently went to India, looking into the falling tiger population. When the British left India in 1947, there were around 50,000 tigers left in the wild, now the number is as low as 500: “We are seeing an almost total collapse of the tiger population in India,” Johnson said, “one of the big factors is demand for tiger bones and tiger parts from China, as this is used in certain traditional medicines.”

There is also a growing “general pressure on the tigers’ habitat.” With the population of India now exceeding a billion people, there are less and less prey species for the tigers to eat and also increasing forays into their reserves: “you are getting increasing conflict between humans and tigers. You may get a situation where a tiger will attack a cow, or even a human, and there will be calls to kill it.” The situation is increasingly getting out of hand, “there are probably more tigers in zoos in Texas then there are in the wild at the moment.”
The mountain gorrilas that inhabit areas of Rwanda and the Eastern Congo are also suffering as a result of human pressures. The war situation in this region has contributed the the drastic reduction in the gorilla population: “Gorillas are constantly getting caught in the crossfire of the militias.” Much of the gorilla’s habitat also lies on potentially lucritive supplies of coltan ore; “there have been a huge influx of miners, many will come across a gorilla and shoot it, one gorilla could keep the miners fed for days.”

There is also a growing trade in the export of illegal bush-meat out to the West, with an estimated 5 million tons of gorilla meat exported from Rwanda and Congo last year. In London, gorilla meat can be sold for up to £300 per kilogram.

Johson has become involved in the Dianne Fossey Gorrilla fund which encourages mining outside gorillas’ areas.

Most recently, Johson has been to Borneo to look into falling numbers of orang-utans that inhabit the island’s primary forests: “it is our own thirst for palm oil which is having the worst effect on the habitat of the orang-utans.” Palm oil is an ingredient in many products in the UK. In Borneo, much primary forest is cut down to make way for palm-tree plantations; “probably the crisps you eat in the bar have got palm oil in them!”

One campaign currently running in the UK is called the ‘Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil,’ “this is to force companies like Tesco and Sainsburies to ensure they source palm oil from plantations not built at the expense of primary forests.”

Over the past 100 years, Orang-utans have lost 91 percent of their population. They are the only great apes outside Africa and, despite legal protection, are still often killed for trade in their meat or body parts.

“I don’t think we in the UK do enough,” Johnson finishes by saying, “for example we should boycott companies who are not sourcing their palm oil sustainably, or who use timber taken from hard wood forests.”

With continued habitat destruction resulting from human actions, many of the species that we look upon so fondly could soon disappear.

It is the most deadly conflict since the Second World War, raging across nine countries and causing four million deaths. Yet weeks will go by and the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo barely gets a mention in the media. For years eastern Congo has effectively been outside central government control. Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, has seen hundreds of thousands of children orphaned since 1994. Every day, women are kidnapped by militias, and rape is used as a weapon of war.

Last week I travelled down to London to meet Johann Hari, the 27 year old columnist for the Independent, author and playwright who last month visited Congo to see for himself why the war has continued and to listen to the voices of the women and children who are most affected by the continuing violence. I met with Hari, a left-leaning journalist and member of the Labour Party, in his trendy Brick Lane apartment.

As well as writing for the Independent, Hari has contributed to the New York Times, Le Monde and The Guardian, won the 2003 Young Journalist of the Year award and been the youngest ever person to be nominated for the Orwell Prize for political writing. Hari famously described religion as “organised superstition” and has been labelled “fat” by the Dalai Lama as well as being called a “c***” by Busted.

Hari visited Congo along with a fact-finding mission from the Labour Party that also included his friend, ex-MP and York graduate Oona King. Hari was particulary interested in the consequences of the conflict for Congolese women. Hari visited a “rape clinic, the only rape clinic in Eastern Congo, where there were dozens of women who had been gang raped and shot in the vagina.” This is an increasingly common occurrence in Congo. Rather than fighting each other, the militias are trying to destroy the other side’s moral by fighting their women; “sexual violence is now absolutely endemic as a tool of war in Congo,” said Hari.

Hari also visited a hospital run by Denis Mukwege, whom he described as “the Oskar Schindler” of the Congolese. For many years Dr. Mukwege was not allowed to treat rape victims, so he ran his hospital in secret. “He had a three year old girl brought in where, as he put it, ‘everything had been shot away’, and the father committed suicide because he couldn’t cope with it.” Hari described how Dr Mukwege saw an old woman who had been gang raped in front of her sons-in-law.” The relationship between a mother and her son-in-law is a very holy one in Congo, “she just said ‘don’t feed me, I want to die, I can never go back.’” The women that make it to Dr. Mukwege’s hospital are, of course, the lucky ones. Most women are just left to die.

So why have things ended up like this? Why does this war that officially ended in 2003, with the Lusaka peace accords, continue to destroy so many lives? The answer is probably sitting right in front of you, in your computer, in your iPod and in your mobile phone. All of these electronic devices contain a metal called coltan, 80% of known supplies of which lie under Congo.

The official story of how the war started centres around the tiny mountain state of Rwanda. After the 1994 genocide, many of its perpetrators it fled across the border into Congo. What is said to have happened is the Rwandan forces then went across the border to capture them. Other countries then invaded as a countervailing force resulting in what former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called Africa’s first world war.

The UN panel of experts set up to look into the causes of the war discovered a more sinister story. What it found was that Rwanda did not invade to go after the perpetrators of the genocide, but to seize the mineral resources of Congo and sell them on to us in the West. Due to the increasing popularity of mobile phones and PlayStations, the price of coltan has boomed This made it much more attractive for Rwanda and the other international armies and militias to go into Congo and take it. “As Oona King puts it, kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living room.”
Hari and King visited an orphanage just outside the capital, Kinshasa; “we were told this was one of the best orphanages in Congo. When we arrived, the first room we went into, the children were just lying on the gloor covered in s***, and flies and vomit. They said this was where the Aids babies go.”

“One boy was just rocking back and forward, we asked, ‘what is wrong with this kid?’ They said, ‘he’s been like that since he arrived here.’ We asked what his name was and they said ‘he doesn’t have a name.’”

It is not only Congo’s physical landscape that is in ruins, but its psychological one too. Stories of witchcraft have been around for a long time in Congo, but now as a consequence of the war, people have started accusing children of being witches; “in the orphanage we saw a child who they called ‘Fidel’, who had his penis cut off by his parents because they thought he was a witch. I went to one of the evangelical churches promoting this idea of witchcraft in a place called Bukavu. I met a 14-year-old girl who was accused of being a witch. She said that her grandmother had came to her in her sleep, and forced her to eat an evil doughnut, and this had meant she had killed her baby sister.” At this point of the interview Hari paused for a while and said, “if Britain had 4 million people murdered, and the rest of us displaced from our homes, living in terror and gang raped, we would start to believe some pretty crazy things too.”

For more information visit:

MONUC
www.monuc.org
Web page of the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Johann Hari
www.johannhari.com
Visit this website to find out more about the Independent columnist, author and playwrite.

The scheduling clash has led to concerns that ticket sales for the events, both of which feature signed headlining acts and fairground rides, will be negatively affected.

YUSU Services officer, Nat Thwaites-McGowan, who is responsible for the booking of the Summer Ball, commented: “We had a choice of week ten or week 11. Were it week 11, students would have already left their houses and would have had to return for Summer Ball, and then again for graduation the week after. Week ten seemed the best all round and allowed after dinner tickets too.”

Thwaites-McGowan does not believe the proximity of the two events to each other will have any detrimental effect on ticket sales for either event.

“I think that Summer Ball is going to be a really strong event. Whether it will sell out I don’t know, but it should definitely break even. I’m offering as much help to Derwent as I can to make their event also a success.”

Big-D organiser Caroline Macfarlane said about the clash: “Ideally we would prefer it if there wasn’t an event in the same week, but Big D is going to be really amazing this year. Every year we sell out, it is the biggest event of term and the best event of term.”

Not everybody is confident that the event will be a sell-out however and there has been some reluctance from Commercial Services to allow Big D organisers use of both Derwent and Langwith facilities.

Bars and Licensing manager Andy Summers commented; “The reason for our concern is I do not feel that the event will sell out with Gradball being the day before.”

The Summer Ball which this year is open to all students, features the band Straight Outta Newport, Welsh rappers Goldie Lookin’ Chain, Abba tribute group Bjorn Again and York University’s very own Battle of the Band finalists The Love Apples.

Guests at the Summer Ball will be provided with a champagne reception, four-course meal and a chocolate fountain. A casino, racing games, dodgems, a carousel, waltzers and a free Survivors Photograph will also be on offer.

All night tickets are priced at £60, whilst after dinner tickets are just £30. Buy online now at www.yusu.org/summerball.

What if I were to tell you that tomorrow you could take a train at York station, and, without setting one foot on an aeroplane, you could be in Singapore within two weeks, standing at the edge of continental Asia. Sound good? Of course, getting there would have been no easy feat; you would have passed through around ten different countries (that is, assuming you decided to take the easiest route) and eight time zones. You would doubtless have suffered setbacks of varying kinds: delays, breakdowns, and, of course, the odd stomach upset or two. Nevertheless, you would have taken one of the greatest journeys on earth.

There is practically no destination in Europe, Africa or Asia that cannot be reached by simply walking off the platform at Waterloo International station onto the carriage of one of the world’s great trains. The possibilities are endless. the destinations fantastic, but above all, it is the journey itself that really puts this mode of travel above all others. Long distance train travel allows you to indulge yourself and relax, basking in the romantic nostalgia of “how it is meant to be” rather than being cocooned at 36,000 feet up in an environment that is about as sterile as the journey it presents you.

Last year a train took me a thousand miles across Australia, through some of the most barren and deserted landscape in the world, for three days and two nights, on the stunning Indian-Pacific railway. The flight would have taken five hours, but why rush? There was a hypnotic effect, looking out the window on that train, which passed over the longest stretch of straight railroad anywhere in the world. Viewing the odd eucalyptus tree or kangaroo made me realise quite how remote I really was.

The train allows you to experience a time and place in a way that no other mode of travel can. There are no worries concerning falling out of the sky, or plunging over a ravine (depending on how exotic the trains you choose to take are of course); one is left free to relax and enjoy the world passing you by, while making casual conversation with fellow travellers and local commuters. The train is often slow, and cyclists can sometimes be seen whizzing by; however, this reflects the pace of life that should be taken when on a relaxing vacation, allowing you to ponder, and finish that book that has been gathering dust for the last few months.

Above all, long-distance train travel encompasses the romance of all those great journeys that have been written and read about. You can still step onto the Orient Express as Herculie Poirot did in the classic Agatha Christie novel, Murder on the Orient Express, or at least the same-named successor to the original ‘Express d’Orient’ that first opened in 1883, between Paris and Vienna. Time can be turned back by stepping on one of India’s grand former imperial carriageways, generally regarded as the best place in the world for railway enthusiasts, such as myself, to travel.

For many of course, the ‘granddaddy’ of all railway journeys has to be the Trans-Siberian railway between Moscow and Vladivostok, in far-eastern Russia. The classic Trans-Siberian route takes around seven days, passing through some of the most remote places in the world. If just Siberia were a country in itself, it would still be the biggest in the world. Of course, you could always take the Trans-Mongolian route, stopping off in Ulan-Baatar (claim to fame: it is the coldest national capital in the world), or the Trans-Manchurian route, which takes you around Mongolia and down to Beijing.

This summer I will be jumping for a night on the historic ‘Red Arrow’, which travels between St. Petersburg and Moscow. It was this railway that transported the first Soviet government from St. Petersburg to Moscow. The track opened in 1851 and is one of the straightest stretches of railroad in the world. It is said that it was meant to be dead straight, however when Tsar Nicholas I was drawing the route on the map, he ran out of ruler and accidentally drew a small curve around his hand, before moving the ruler down and carrying on the line down to Moscow. The result is an apparently random curve in the otherwise dead straight track between the two cities.

For a solitary traveller, such as myself, a train allows you the choice to either relax in conversation with those around you (provided you speak the same language of course), or slip away into silent anonymity and the comfort of a good book. With careful eyes it can actually be said that a country’s trains can reflect a national psyche. Look at the Bullet Trains in Japan, or the Swiss railways, they are fast, efficient and practical. In contrast, the slow-moving, open air carriageways going across Zambia are relaxed and enjoyable, reflecting a more laid back way of life. The train may reach its destination in a day, it may not, but what does a few extra hours really matter?

For time really looses its meaning when there is not just a destination to be reached, but also a journey to enjoy.

For more information on train travel visit:

The Man in Seat Sixty-One www.seat61.com
Advice on travelling by train and boat to Europe, Africa, Asia and America.

Great Rail Journeys
www.greatrailuk.com
A York-based company organising holidays by train throughout the world.

When most of us go to work, it involves waking up on a cold morning, digging your uniform out from the back of the wardrobe and waiting in the rain for a bus that never seems to come on time. When Peter Moore goes to work, it involves travelling to a far flung corner of the globe and embarking on the kind of adventure that most can only dream of. Peter grew up in Sydney’s western suburbs and while studying at University for a degree in Medieval History became hopelessly addicted to travel. Now he is able to fuel his habit by writing books about his adventures. Peter has so far published five books as well as writing articles for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and formerly a regular column for TNT. This has led to him becoming the voice of alternative travel in both Australia and the UK.

At last count, Peter had visited 95 different countries, including some of the most conflict-ravaged regions on the planet. He tries to explain to me exactly where it all started: “When I was about 19 and had just started at Uni, my dad, who’s a plumber and Seventh Day Adventist, took me out with him to a mission school in Vanuatu to help build a shower block. The principal of the school rewarded us for our work by taking us to a neighbouring island which was home to two tribes, called the ‘Big Nambas’ and the ‘Small Nambas’. All the men wore was a piece of cloth around their penis and since the Big Nambas believed a big penis was good, they used a lot of cloth, whilst the Small Nambas believed a small penis was good so used less! This was my first moment of realisation that the world is full of interesting places, and, after that, every chance I got I would go travelling. Each trip I did whetted my appetite further and I was never disappointed.”

Peter’s most popular travel book so far in the UK has been The Wrong Way Home, in which, after a spell working in Britain, he decided he was going to use the remainder of his budget (just over £2,000) to get home to Sydney without going on a plane; “I wanted to travel home overland – without flying – as a way of blowing my mind and enriching my life.” The trail followed by Peter was originally popular with the hippies of the 1960s, who often took the journey to the Far East in droves.

At Mugabe’s birthday – ‘It was like a comic book scene, his guard opened his jacket and revealed a gun. I realised at this point it was time to back off

On his way back to Australia, Moore decided he would use this opportunity to take a jaunt through the war-torn Balkans. “I was in Budapest during the time of the Balkan War and I thought a trip down to the former Yugoslavia was in order.” Peter ended up travelling down through Croatia, Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina. “I saw this bus with ‘Mostar’ on the front, which is a town in Bosnia, and I thought if the buses were going there then it must be ok!” This sense of adventure coupled with an apparent disregard for self-preservation sometimes has the tendency to get Moore into fairly harrowing situations, as he found out when he eventually arrived in Mostar. “The bus arrived and I saw it was still a war zone. I decided I would just sit on the bus and wait for it to turn back, but it turned out that it was stopping for the night. Understandably, the town was pretty much deserted and anything resembling a place to stay was shut long ago. I was even considering heading down to the police station and asking them to put me in a cell for the night! As it happened, I bumped into a couple of guys who offered me a place to stay at their uncle’s flat. I later found out that when the war started their uncle had taken the family to safety over in America and left the keys to his flat with his nephews.”

One of the major motivations for Moore to continue exploring the world is the frequent kindness he experiences. “The thing I love about travelling is the people. When I go somewhere, the hospitality of the people I meet sticks in my mind rather than a monument or grand vista.” During his trip from London to Sydney, Peter ended up spending some time travelling through Iran. “I have never in my life been anywhere where the people are so pathologically hospitable! Everywhere I went people were coming up to me and inviting me to have tea or offering to show me around.”

The openness of his books is the essence of why Moore is so popular with his audience. Travelling on his own, he always seems to be able to go with the flow, allowing him to meet some of the most genuine, interesting and friendly people in all corners of the globe. For his book, Swahili for the Broken Hearted, Peter travelled overland from Cape Town, the most Southern city in Africa, all the way up to the Egyptian capital of Cairo. At one point he found his path taking him through the coastal country of Mozambique. Whilst on the bus between South Africa and Mozambique, he started talking to Claude and Leonard, two people on their way to the capital Maputo, who invited Moore to go and stay with them. “It just so happened that Claude’s mother had just arrived back from Portugal. It was this big occasion and they brought the old Portuguese pop records out and had a big family celebration. It didn’t matter that I was just this weird foreigner they had never met before, I was still included in it.” Peter believes that after you have travelled for a while you develop a sixth sense which allows you to gauge whether a situation is dodgy or not. “I guess I have this thing where if people invite me somewhere I size them up, think ‘is this a con?’ and then just go with the flow.”

Despite having travelled through regions plagued by civil war and conflict, Peter says the only time he has really felt in danger while travelling was in Birmingham. “It was midnight and I was sitting outside the Bullring, which hadn’t been done up at the time, and I could see all these guys stumbling by and checking me out. The sixth sense was telling me ‘shit, I’m going to get robbed here.’ It was my first trip to England and I just wanted the bus to come and take me to Stratford. Eventually a drunk guy rolled up to me, looking threatening, yet he ended up befriending me and we went for a beer together.”

One trip that Peter decided not to take alone was the six-month trip around Central America, which was the subject of his book The Full Montezuma. He invited his girlfriend whom he had only recently started going out with, along with him, which turned out to be a mistake. “My advice is don’t do it,” he chuckles, “it really puts a relationship into hyper mode. You have just started going out with this girl and she is sitting in the bathroom making noises like a cappuccino machine, it really advances the relationship to a whole different level! Besides that, it also limits the possibilities of interacting with the locals, which is the reason that I really love travelling.”

The Vespa was a real ice breaker with people, and I saw a new side of Italy.

One of Moore’s first major trips was taken back in 1991, aged 26, when he decided to quit his job and spend a year travelling around the equator. This trip took him through places such as Indonesia, Somalia, Uganda and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). Talking about his travels through Central Africa, Moore’s passion for the unpredictability of travelling becomes apparent. “When I was in Zaire I wanted to get from Kisingani down to Kinshasa, and was planning to travel by a river that goes all the way. I ended up getting on this barge where I was assured by the captain that the trip would only last four days, but it ended up taking six weeks! My walkman batteries went after two days, my food was gone after three, but luckily I befriended the captain’s wife, who would bring me a bowl of watery fish soup and rice every day.” This turned out to be a saving grace for Peter, as the only other food on offer was the charred monkeys that people were selling wherever the boat pulled up (or more commonly broke down) along the river.

In 2001, on a trip from Cape Town to Cairo, Moore happened to be travelling through Zimbabwe at the time of President Mugabe’s birthday. Mugabe’s birthday bash was taking place at Victoria Falls, the town where Peter was staying. He decided he would try and go along, and managed to get into the stadium where the party was being held by accompanying a guide he had met a few days ago. Before he could catch a glimpse of the man himself though, Peter was singled out in the crowd and approached by one of Mugabe’s security team. “It was like a comic book scene, this guy opened his jacket and revealed a gun. I realised at this point it was time to back off.”

Later on in the journey, Moore ended up going through Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, just as the student riots were breaking out. “I got out of the mini van and suddenly I see this angry mob waving sticks and placards advancing down the street. Luckily this guy grabs me and drags me into a little mud brick shop at the side of the road. As I hid, I looked around and found out it was actually a coffin shop. Outside there were gunshots and cars being turned over and I was thinking ‘I wonder if I will have to end up hiding in one of these’, but luckily it never came to that.” When he did go outside though he was approached by some angry protesters who started yelling at him “American! American!” in a rather threatening manner. “Luckily, the guy from the shop went over to calm them down, and they were having a conversation for a while. He came back over to me and said ‘It’s ok, I have explained to them you are Australian, they have seen your Skippy!’”

Peter’s latest book is Vroom with a View, which saw him move away from the kind of travelling he had previously done in order to travel around Italy on a forty-year-old motor scooter. “When I was a teenager I remembered seeing these fantastic old black and white movies of people going around on Vespas and I always thought that was something I really wanted to do.” Moore made the trip shortly after his 40th birthday and was very aware of the differences between this journey and his other adventures. “The thing that worried me before I went on the trip was if I was on a Vespa, am I going to just be passing through places rather than becoming involved with the people? As it turned out the Vespa was often a real ice breaker with the people, and I got to see a side of Italy I had never previously seen.”

For two weeks of that trip, Sally, a girl from London whom Peter had just started going out with, came out to Italy to spend some time travelling with him on the Vespa. They are now happily married and have recently become first-time parents. Moore is unsure if being married with a child will affect the audaciousness of some of his future travels. “I don’t know, I haven’t done a big trip since my daughter was born, so I guess we will find out later if it affects the way I go about things. Once you start travelling it gets addictive, and I’m still constantly scanning the horizons for new places to go.”

As for the future, he is currently working on his latest book,Crikey! ,the story of when he and his wife bought an old car and headed off around the circumference of Australia.Crikey! is getting finished and there will also be a sequel to Vroom on the way, which will see a return to Italy and a reunion with his beloved Vespa for a trip through Sardinia, Sicily and the Amalfi Coast. “After that it’s going to be something big, possibly around the former Soviet States or South America, something with the hardships.”

Although the devil-may-care attitude of Moore towards travelling may be daunting to many, he has a simple word of advice for would-be explorers. “If you want to travel, go and travel, it is a fantastic world out there. If you really have the time and the inclination you can do it.”

To find out more about Peter’s adventures and writing visit his website:
www.petermoore.net

The Wrong Way Home, Bantam
(1999)

Having spent some time working here in the UK, Peter decides it’s time to head home to Australia. With only AUS $5,000 to his name, Peter tries to make his way thousands of miles back to Sydney without stepping on a plane. Following the trail set by the hippies of the sixties, not even the threat of civil war or the prospect of breaking international law will deter Peter in eventually reaching his goal. Peter’s eight-month journey sees him dodge mortar fire in Bosnia, have tea with the local Muhajeddin in Afghanistan and make a pilgrimage to see the legendary ‘Willie Bob’ in Nepal.

Swahili for the Broken-Hearted, Bantam
(2003)

After breaking up with his girlfriend back in Sydney, Peter does what any sensible guy would do in the same situation: he runs off to Africa! The route he will take will be that of Cecil Rhodes’ dream when he decides he will travel overland from Cape Town to Cairo. This book is a brilliant read for anyone who is looking to reassure their faith in humanity since Peter is helped in reaching his goal by all manner of people as he makes his way through 12 countries surviving student riots in Addis Ababa, attending Robert Mugabe’s birthday party and also finding his way into a role in an Academy Award Winning movie!

Vroom With A View, Bantam
(2004)

Peter is turning 40. Despite having travelled in over 90 different countries, there is a niggling feeling, something that he feels he must do and that has been building up since childhood. After becoming enchanted by old Sophia Lauren movies in his youth, Peter decides that he is going to travel in style around Italy on a 1962 Vespa, the same age as him, a little rough around the edges but overall still in good working order. Peter ends up seeing a side of Italy rarely encountered by the beach-goers and inter-railers and makes some friends-for-life after a truly magnifico journey through the country’s heart.

Living in York, it is almost impossible to escape the city’s ancient, and sometimes bloody, history. This takes on a whole new meaning for one week in February where history buffs like myself break out the chain-mail and crack open the mead for the week long Jorvik Viking Festival, characterised by feasting, fighting, dancing and drinking in the manner of those fierce Scandinavian raiders from across the North sea.

A love of history can take on many forms. Some may read the odd book about Hitler or tune in to Tony Robinson and Time Team on occasion, and some poor souls even choose to study it for a degree. However since my arrival in York (unfortunately not in a longboat), I have become involved more literally in history and been transformed into a ‘Medieval Re-enactor’.

Now there are many stereotypes that come with that label, most of them thanks to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. However I would like to re-assure you that during the week we are indeed ordinary and everyday members of society. We sit next to you in seminars and possibly even take some of your lectures. You might think the estate agent that sorted you out with that house down at Sinclair Properties is dull and uninteresting, but come the weekend he could be just as easily marching into battle dressed as a fierce Viking, side by side with hundreds of other battle hungry warriors who are also ready to transport themselves back to a time of honour, heraldry, and when you weren’t frowned upon for having a beard.

Viking festival week allows all of us like-minded people to show our true colours. Throughout the week there are period markets and historic walks, taking in the city’s many Viking treasures. However it is the final Saturday of the festival that we get our main event, the longboats arrive down the River Ouse and the stage is set for the great battle, the evening finale that everybody has come to see.

Each year of the Viking Festival, of which this is the 20th, a different tale gets re-enacted from a period of our Viking past. This time our tale took us back to 939 A.D. and the royal wedding of Princess Edith to King Sihtric. On the afternoon of Saturday, 25th February 2006 (or 939, depending on how into it you were getting), there was a re-enactment of a battle waged by Vikings opposed to the marriage. Hardened warriors in armour and chain mail marched through York, spears aloft, and entered the battlefield to the roaring cheers of the crowd that had assembled to witness the spectacle. Fighting was fierce and all we could hear was the sound of swords hitting shields and armour.

After the battle, the wedding was allowed to go ahead in the atmospheric candle light of York Minster. The full ambience of a candle-lit gothic cathedral created the mood that everyone attending was hoping for. It was definitely unlike any wedding I had ever previously been to, partially because of the costumes and partially because both the bride and groom had died over 1,000 years ago.

As the festival drew to a close, I even saw a glint in the eye of the large bearded fellow sitting a couple of seats away from me as everyone left to exchange their armour for business suits, and their swords for laptops, until the next great call from the battle field when the Vikings come marching again.

Despite the requirement by law that university fire safety equipment must be serviced annually, it has been revealed that two extinguishers in C-Block have not been checked since September 2003. Another was found in Derwent F block that has not been checked since July 2004.

The lapse in the maintenance of safety equipment was revealed following a fire that took place in C-Block kitchen on the night of the 15th February. The Fire Department was called out to tackle the blaze, but the C-Block kitchen has suffered extensive smoke damage and will be out of use until further notice.

Ahmed Siddiqi, resident of Derwent C-Block who was in the building at the time of the fire said; “I went into the kitchen and saw the fire so I immediately called the porters. I didn’t try and tackle it, I know our fire extinguisher hasn’t been checked in a long time so it wouldn’t be the best idea!”

Derwent resident Ashley Scanlan expressed concern about the implications of faulty safety equipment, saying “We get told all the time by the University about the importance of keeping fire doors closed and watching out for our cooking but if push came to shove and the extinguishers didn’t work then that’s it for us really!”

When contacted, Lynne Jarret of the University’s Health and Safety Directorate said she was not aware that safety equipment was out of date but that “the matter will be investigated.” She also stressed that “Over the coming months [the university] will be taking a full review alongside the SU to address fire safety.”

Will Wright, another Derwent C Block resident, believes that “basic fire training should be given to every student”, to prepare them for tackling blazes such as that which occurred in their kitchen last week.

Phil Chilton, who is a watch manager at York Fire Safety, said that “Fire safety equipment should be checked and maintained annually by a competent firm and this should be recorded.”

As well as the statutory annual inspection, the Chief Fire Officers’ Association and Local Government Association recommend “routine inspection” of fire extinguishers either quarterly or, preferably, monthly.

A warning to all students

York fire station has spoken out about student safety precautions following a spate of recent fires in halls.

Station officer Carl Vinand of York Fire Station said; “What is needed is for students to take charge. All fires we are called out for happen as a result of stupidity.”
Mr Vivand also raised concern over the dangerous mix of alcohol and fire safety. “Most fires occur after closing time and we do not want people trying to tackle them after they have had a drink”.

The blaze in a Derwent C block kitchen started after oil heating in a wok caught fire. An investigation into the circumstances surrounding the fire is soon to be launched.
Many fires are caused in a similar way to that in Derwent, mostly involving chip pans. “Just use oven chips” was the final message from Mr. Vinand.

Next week the student body will have the opportunity to vote on proposals put forward by the SU for a new Union constitution. The new structure will result in a cull of executive positions and the introduction of a new Union ‘Senate’, the hope being more streamlined decision making and a more efficiently run Union.

Some of those opposed to the changes put forward have launched a campaign encouraging students to vote against the new structuring, claiming that the removal of liberation officers, such as women’s, LGBT, racial equality and access, from the executive will reduce representation.
It seems to me however as though they need not worry. Under the new system decision making processes will be far more streamlined and effective, allowing the Union to achieve more on a day-to-day basis, while not reducing student representation.

Currently, 54 members sit on the Union executive committee. When you consider that the UK cabinet, who have the job of proposing and executing policy on a national scale, has only 26 members, one can only imagine the difficulty of co-ordinating a body as large as the current SU executive. When you take this into consideration, there appears to me to be no point in having all of these positions on the executive committee if the decision making structure is so inefficient that nothing gets done.

Removed from the executive will be the seven college JCR chairs. I can see a number of reasons why they should not automatically have seats on the executive. Firstly, they are elected by only a small portion of the university student body and charged with the role of administering their college. Having JCR chairs serve on the executive committee would be like having the mayor of York serve in the cabinet at Downing Street. Secondly, we saw from the hilarity that was the JCR hustings that these positions aren’t always decided on a rational basis, are you sure you feel comfortable with every JCR chair being involved in the everyday running of the Students’ Union?

The Union Senate will comprise of the proposed 11 member executive, as well as the liberation officers, JCR chairs and numerous SU affiliates, as well as five ‘ordinary members’. The executive will thus be hugely outnumbered in the Senate, so there can thus be no accusations that they will be able to dominate the body. It will be the Senate that takes the decisions directing the actions of the executive. In days of such chronic student apathy, the Senate will act as an independent representative body providing a good, new means of holding officers to account.

A new sabbatical position will also be introduced with the role of looking after “societies and communications”. Considering the overwhelming number of student societies, a full-time co-ordinator has to be seen as a positive step. Permanent support for the societies will serve to increase the quality of activities that are offered and make the organisations run far more effectively.

Cynics might say that all this is merely an effort from the current administration to stamp their legacy into the university history books. Whether or not this is a motivation behind the timing of the proposed reforms, they seem to be clearly for the better, providing a far more efficient and effective management structure which will better serve all students of the university.

The crimes were committed in quick succession during Thursday and Friday in houses J, G and F of Lindley Court Halifax College.

The total value of the items stolen, which include a wallet containing £40 cash, a purse and mobile phone, was estimated at close to £300.

PC Chris Poole of Fulford Police confirmed that “a youth” had been arrested in connection with the robberies, but no further details were available about the individual concerned. The suspect is pending charge, and no court date has yet been set.

The robbery from house J is believed to have occurred between 1 and 2pm on Thursday 8th December, though the times of the other robberies are as yet unconfirmed.

Resident David Man-sell, a first year Economics and Finance student, was the victim of the first robbery. He said “It all must have happened in the space of an hour, I came in, threw my wallet on my bed, left for an hour, came back and it was gone. Having thought I simply may have lost it, I searched for hours and when I still couldn’t find it I reported it to the porters”.

The porters then contacted the police, who interviewed the residents before beginning their investigation. All three victims were adamant that their bedroom doors had been locked prior to their departure, and police found no sign of forced entry in any of the rooms.

Other residents in the houses in question were present at the time of the robbery, but were unaware of the crimes being committed.
Resident John Prebble said: “what is surprising is the audacity of the thief, to do so many robberies in such quick succession”. Since police have arrested their suspect no further thefts have been reported.

The boundaries between the political and the personal are notoriously difficult to define. Personal attacks are seen in the politics of Westminster and we are seeing them now in the context of our own Students’ Union. While a forum should be provided for students to hold Union officers to account, this must not be allowed to degrade into abuse and harassment.

‘Ask YUSU’ was an initiative set up for the purpose of providing a means for every student on campus to have an easy and effective way of posing questions to their elected representatives. By publishing both the questions and answers on the Union website, all students are able to have equal access. This, it was thought, would make it easier for the student body to keep check on the actions of Union officers.

In this sense the forums have been largely successful. Officers now appear to be far more accessible than they have previously been and many legitimate queries have been answered. In recent weeks however, the focus seems to have moved from questioning policies to personally attacking certain officers of the Union.

The University’s code of practice is very clear on what amounts to harassment, specifically stating “derisory remarks, verbal abuse, insults and threats”.

Aspects of this have clearly been seen present in some of the ‘questions’ asked to SU officers through the forum. Statements from the simply idiotic to downright offensive are being permitted to be aired in public when grievances of a personal nature should clearly only be brought up in private, and through the proper channels.

On top of this, the ridiculous nature of many of the questions posed is serving simply to undermine the service and the Students Union as a whole. If officers are forced to be subjected to bullying and intimidation, then it will only have a detrimental effect on their work. This is the same in any kind of organisation, public or private, or for any member of the university, staff or student.

Reading through the forum, I believe that many students would also be put off posing their own questions to the officers, because of what is taking place. Were it your first time on the forum and you browsed onto a question such as the ones asking certain officers about their sexuality, you would be forgiven for thinking that the forum serves no useful purpose at all.

So, what is the best way to combat all this? Clearly the service needs to be more heavily moderated, but a question lingers over whose duty it should be to determine which questions are and are not appropriate to be aired. There would be concerns that if this were up to the officers themselves then certain legitimate, but difficult, questions may go unanswered.

If a “question” is sent to an officer, or anyone else connected with the University for that matter, which falls within the guidelines of what is classified as harassment, then appropriate measures should be taken through official channels to resolve it. If this means tracing the person responsible and taking appropriate disciplinary action then this is what should be done.

No member of this university should have to put up with personal abuse or harassment, and I would support any means of combating it.

A proposal to trace the perpetrators of the current bombard of abuse was rejected by the SU, but it appears to me that this is wholly necessary. The University and the SU need to demonstrate that bullying, harassment and intimidation will, under no circumstances, be tolerated.

A rumour, broadcast on a pirate radio station, of the rape of a fourteen year old Afro-Caribbean girl in a beauty shop in the Lozells area is said to have been the spark. Violence broke out after a public meeting and the shop was then attacked. The owner claims that the rumour was started by business rivals seeking to undermine him and harm his reputation. As of yet the girl at the centre of the rape allegation has not come forward. It is thought that she may be an illegal immigrant and is afraid of the implications for her and her family were she to talk to the police.

Police report some 80 crimes were committed during the riots. One police officer was shot and injured and numerous stabbings were reported. The man killed was 23 year old Isaiah Young-Sam, of Afro-Caribbean descent, who is said to have played no part in the riots. Three men have now been charged with his murder.

The night after the rioting, an 18 year old man was shot dead two kilometres from where the violence took place in what is suspected to be a related incident.

Is what we have witnessed in Birmingham a demonstration of Trevor Phillips’ (the Commission for Racial Equality chair) claim that we are “sleepwalking our way into segregation”? The communities of Lozells and East Handsworth are predominantly people of Asian and Afro-Caribbean descent. The two groups lead very segregated lives, going to different schools and not integrating nearly as much as one would expect, considering the densely populated nature of this area of the city.

Trevor Phillips also argued that the government simply isn’t doing enough to combat segregation within communities. Plans have recently been announced to increase the number of faith based schools which could be seen as a move that will result in communities growing further apart. This area of Birmingham has problems of unemployment and social deprivation. As the manufacturing industries move out it is becoming more and more difficult for the people who live there to find jobs. Escalating gang based violence is also making it increasingly difficult for community workers and others to get involved in what could be seen as the real backbone of the problem.

It is also worth pointing out that on the 27th October up to 70 black, white and asian women held a peace march in Lozells. The majority of people that live there do not want violence in their community, just happy lives for their families. Still, it is clear that more must be done to prevent further violence occuring.

More widely and more worrying is the clear threat that the bill poses to academic freedom. The Association of University Teachers is concerned that the clause making “incitement” to commit terrorist acts a criminal offence could lead to unknown breaches of the law by academics, teachers and students alike. You’d better watch out what you say in seminars, as intent is not a precursor to prosecution as the bill stands.

Remember, this extends the terror laws that saw Walter Wolfgang detained for shouting ‘nonsense’ during the last Labour party conference. If used to justify the detention of OAP war veterans, then the worst can only be feared when applied to students and academics.

New guidelines issued by Universities UK dealing with intolerance and hate crimes on campus, reaffirms: “the principle of academic freedom is central to the work of Higher Education Institutions.” It is a cornerstone of our democracy which could now be severely restricted.

The AUT warns that a “culture of suspicion” could be created on campus, as teachers have to watch out what they teach and to whom. This is a ridiculous and discriminatory expectation of lecturers, whose responsibility is to teach, not to ‘screen’ those walking in and out of the lecture theatre. It could result in important topics being ‘left off the agenda,’ which would only have a detrimental effect on student learning.

Speaking with various students of the politics and history departments, many seem worried that their tutors may indeed be forced to “shy away” from certain issues as a result of the new law. This could include even historical study of, for example, Ireland or resistance in Apartheid South Africa, as they are shelved simplistically as ‘terrorist tactics,’ without scope for re-evaluation.

Moreover, student years are a time for activism. Universities have traditionally been at the forefront of political interrogation. This bill could cast a grave shadow over this, criminalising the expression of support for those who oppose oppressive political regimes.

The bill requires substantial amendments to protect our legitimate work. The AUT is lobbying for proof of ‘intent’ or ‘recklessness’ to be required for prosecution. The bill is unacceptably broad and lends an incredibly wide berth for subjective interpretation. Law should always be clear to those whom it governs.